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This is a proposed Game-Play modification for Squad, of the epic Novalogic 2004 game Joint Operations:Typhoon Rising (JO, JointOps).
I aim to copy, as closely as I can, the game-play and feel of JO. This will be a free, not-for-profit mod - I am doing this for my personal love of JO, for the community in general, and "to see if I can". The end result will be entirely dependant on what things OWI allow us to tinker with after the SDK is finalised (release-finalised), and will also be dependant on the changes that occur in Squad over time as things are modified, added or removed from the base game itself. The mod will aim to recreate the classic and original AAS game-play style of JO and will mostly use Squad assets and elements, with some additional things added and some things removed or disabled from the base game. The mod will never, ever, incorporate Unlocks, Ranking or Achievements of any kind.

<*>

Rough Outline (wishlist):The mod will offer a slightly faster paced and open game play style with less of the RPG overhead that Squad requires from players.
- It will retain the squad grouping system and all comm's as they stand.
- I intend to remove (unless unable to) the Ticket, Stamina, Sprint, Claim, Deployable and Logistic systems/functions.
- FOBs, HABs and Rally Points will be removed as they do not fit a purely AAS style and will thus be redundant.
- The medic system will be mostly unmodified but bleed will be removed (unless unable to). Damage taken reduces hit-points, falling damage reduces hit-points. loosing all hit-points will cause Incap (revivable), unless sustained from a high fall, head-shot, knifing or being run over - these last will cause Death (requiring re-spawn).
- There will be less Squad screen-candy (helpers) and the command rose will be greatly reduced depending on what functions are actually needed for the mod, although I will be adding some other screen-candy from JO.

Media: As of yet there is none apart from my Assets and Maps - see relevant modding threads >

Recruitment:None at this point in time, but I'll most likely have to put the word out for specialist help with some things eventually.

<*>

Current Progress:See Update posts.

I am in the process of creating numerous easily recognised assets from the original Joint Ops game including; Maps(numerous), Statics (numerous), Vehicles (one or two), weapons (MP5-S at least) and game play and UI elements - these canbe found (or eventually will be) in my threads in the modding forum (links above).This process will take some time to achieve as I am the only person working on this mod, by choice at this point, but will be spending most of my spare time outside of work and life-in-general on it. I do not wish to have to ask anyone else for help at this point in time as I think most of the things I need to get done I can probably do myself, however there may be some things such as rigging a vehicle/weapon or more difficult BP_'ing/scripting stuff, that I might have to call out for help on.

<*>

Finally,

Thanks * infinity to OWI for providing such unheard-of access to their game and for encouraging us all to have a go.

I know there is a lot of things that I have mentioned above that I am going to (hopefully) butcher from the basic Squad game and I do hope the Devs don't chuck-a-hearty over it, but they have opened the door of opportunity for me to "see if I can", and I do fervently hope to be able to re-create a resemblance to my all-time favourite game.

GG's from .LJ

Edited January 10 by LaughingJack

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Never played JO myself , but many people here seem to like mentioning it all the time , from what you have discribed it seem like it's going to be like a modern-day battlefield 2 , which is my favorite battlefield to this day , so i can just wish you luck and hope to try it out myself !

One thing i would recommand is that you 'll ask some guys on the forums that are already working on JO assets if they can let you use them , just to make your job alot easier and better overall .

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I have had AAS "Classic" mod in my mind since the SDK have been around, but it is still in level of "some day" mostly because there is still no way to test a such mod atm. (Who could have guessed the alpha phase do take 2+ years.) Not as radical than your conversion though, but fixing some of the issues of (P)AASv2 or what ever the current implementation should be called.

Edited October 2, 2017 by WARti0k0ne -BG-

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I have had AAS "Classic" mod in my mind since the SDK have been around, but it is still in level of "some day" mostly because there is still no way to test a such mod atm. ... but fixing some of the issues of (P)AASv2 or what ever the current implementation should be called.

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Always Run: have modified the character Walk Speed to 400 and set "sprint" to the same (not worked out how to un-hook(?) 'sprint' from the game yet). one wierd side effect of this is that, whilst running, when i press the Sprint key the character drops back to a slower than walk (like crouched) speed, and brings the gun up to non-ads (like creeping fwd, at the ready, kinda thing) - so, odd effect and i'm not yet sure i want to use it.

Stamina: have modified stamina to have no detrimental effect on anything.

Jump: no stamina on jump now but retaining the Consecutive Jump Penalty.

AAS ('traditional/original' type): have a set of bases (see Dormant Volcano Island map) in the trditional AAS style. have not yet worked out how to expose the perimeters to Radar/Map yet (i believe this is a limitation of the engine not able to Draw circles), but i can capture in-order. end-of-round does not work yet - i was hoping to use the ticket system to apply a point to each final base so that when taken it would end the round - this does not work yet and i don't know why ... yet.

i have also been mucking about in the Roles and seeing what might be moddable in the loadout/inventory. some other stuffs too but i forget atm.

.LJ

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have not yet worked out how to expose the perimeters to Radar/Map yet (i believe this is a limitation of the engine not able to Draw circles), but i can capture in-order. end-of-round does not work yet - i was hoping to use the ticket system to apply a point to each final base so that when taken it would end the round - this does not work yet and i don't know why ... yet.

i have also been mucking about in the Roles and seeing what might be moddable in the loadout/inventory. some other stuffs too but i forget atm.

.LJ

You talking about generating the minimap when you speak of the Radar/Map?

As far a the flags go I'm pretty sure you can simply remove them and the game blueprint will simply rely on the win condition being tickets or the timer running out. Reasonably sure that you could change the blueprints to make a traditional TDM too.

The squadops.gg folks made several new roles in their one life mod and there is a video about it. Probably want to make a Barrett with 7x zoom at least right?

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You talking about generating the minimap when you speak of the Radar/Map?

nah, minimap's done, it's to do with Drawing on the map - the engine can't Draw [2dDraw] circles. it's been suggested by someone that i would have to create a circle Texture, to then make a Material that could then be applied to the Map - but this would require different Mat settings (poss diff mats as well) per rough circle size - this would be way cumbersome and difficult to get to look any good. so, waiting on Epic to emable the 2dDraw function to do circles (referenced from the CaptureZone perimeter).

the only way i got them to show on the minimap iv'e done for the DVIsland map is i set the CaptureZone perimeter to Seen/visible-in-game and raised them up from the ground so the whole circle was visible - just for creating the minimap - then i had to reset them all.

12 hours ago, Zylfrax791 said:

As far a the flags go I'm pretty sure you can simply remove them and the game blueprint will simply rely on the win condition being tickets or the timer running out.

i have set out A,B,C&D bases with A & D owned by their respective teams (one each). i have allocated 1 ticket to each team and made the penalty for losing a base to be 1 ticket. so when i go take the last base, the opsition team loses their only ticket and the round should end - but that don't happen - not tried it in conjunction with the timer yet (tho i'm sure it'd work) - prolly do that over the weekend.

I think i have to really go through all the ticket stuff i can find and check i've not missed anything (prolly have).

of course i have yet to work out how the spawns are controlled (enabled/disabled) as well.

Really not sure about a sniper class at this point - although they do make good shanking fodder when they get annoying (a'hunting we will go ....)

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i have set out A,B,C&D bases with A & D owned by their respective teams (one each). i have allocated 1 ticket to each team and made the penalty for losing a base to be 1 ticket. so when i go take the last base, the opsition team loses their only ticket and the round should end - but that don't happen - not tried it in conjunction with the timer yet (tho i'm sure it'd work) - prolly do that over the weekend.

I think i have to really go through all the ticket stuff i can find and check i've not missed anything (prolly have).

What happens if you simply remove all the flags though? Doesn't the game mechanic simply then default to tickets lost from kills and vehicle destruction? Probably should throw it out there on the Modding Discord and see if anyone knows. I mean certainly you could start over from scratch and make a complete TDM blueprint I'd imagine instead of trying to reverse engineer this one right? That way it would be the proper formula of the winning team having more kills as opposed to the losing team have no tickets.

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I've just discovered the Invasion RuleSet - It's the mode where taking all the bases wins the game (plays the same as JO-style AAS) which is good. however i can't seem to get my player to spawn at an Owned SpawnPoint only - no matter which Team i specify, i spawn randomly, at any Spawn regardless of Ownership - so i've got to nut that one out yet.

EDIT: iirc if i suicide and respawn -being then actually able to spawn correctly at a team spawn - i have no character anims and i 'slide' along the ground.

EDITEDIT: run PIE in Dedi Server mode = fixed

As for Tickets: i've given up on that line as they don't seem to do what i wanted or what you suggested but that doesn't matter now, (they're still set as i mentioned in the post earlier - iirc the editor crashed when i removed them using the Invasion RuleSet, so i reinstated them - no idea what they're actually doing now

<EDIT: read post below

EDITEDIT: fixed now, using std AAS

Hopefully now, with a game timer set as well, the game will finish on 'all bases taken' or 'time's up'.

Day/Night cycle: i have now mostly built a Day/Night cycle based on a simple tute i found about rotating the "Sun".

Works pretty good so far but the SkyShpere is staying blue (not rotating - thought it did this automatically) - so i get weird twilight all night.

Still working on how to build a Progressive Spawn Point - i've been mucking about with BP's of the c++'s for the SpawnGroup, SpawnPoint, CaptureZone and CaptureZoneComponent - but i'm stumbling around blindly at this point, lols

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Pretty sure I saw some complete day/night blueprints for sale on the Unreal Marketplace.

just posted mine here>

just finished today, works pretty good so far.

Also, the Tickets thing: i've just tested the Invasion RuelSet and it works a treat - still getting the Tickets up at EOR but they are accurate so far (winner had 1, loser had 0) so now i have to find where a ticket can be earned by taking a base/cap so that i can reward for taking bases as well as losing them. < Invasion is only single directional AAS, so not using it now

I've given up on the "weight-of-numbers" bit now, coz v12 has spawn control due to nearby enemies

so i've decided to muck about with the SQCaptureZone and the ForwardBaseSpawn. i've added the Spawn (as child comp.) to the Cap.Zone BP. i have stuck a bunch of Nodes together and ended up with this: (i'm probably doing this all wrong )

not tested yet: but hopefully it will control Capturing and Spawning via Weight of Numbers ...

ATM i still have an issue accessing; control/variable so i can Get & Set "Contested" value, and i don't know how to change the In- & De-crement Nodes to be Float (can't find one yet).

Tip: run in Dedicated Server mode (PIE) - this fixes many things that don't appear to work properly in the editor, when not-Dedicated-PIE.

the day/night cycle is now finished, barring tweaks. see this vid for the starry night sky at the end.> https://youtu.be/YptDgKYVUsg . you will also see the Icons for "Emplacement" and " Armory " - the Armories are accessible by Team only ...

... i still cannot get Neutral ones to be accessible by anyone, even though i can use Neutral Spawns - go figure. < still a Thing ...

- AAS: using the standard AAS Gamemode(modified) - Turns out Invasion is a single-direction mode not bi-directional.

- Tickets: now used only for counting the number of Caps owned, which also ends the game on losing all Caps(Tickets), and i assume the game will also end on Round Timer ending and display total Caps held by each team if not all of the Caps are taken.

- Night-Day cycle: finished at this point

uther stuffs

- given up on making my own Weight-of-Numbers functionality due to the new(V12) spawn control now having something similar, with Spawn becoming inactive whilst enemies are nearby (which is what i was trying to achieve) - waiting on the next SDK update for this.

- working on a Vehicle Allowance function, to limit the maximum number of each vehicle type on-the-field at any one time.

- working on how to modify the Soldier Wounded State, to remove bleeds and simplify incap & death.

- still working on a "universal" ammo crate that both teams can use; still few hiccups (read: SDK crashing). subsequently found out UE4 apparently does not like two of the same BP's put into one BP ( ), so i'm going to try overlapped and grouped - see if that works.

main thing i'm still not so happy about is Shadows and Shadow LOD'ing (particularly on foliage) - hopefully the new(V12) lighting will fix things.

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Heightmaps, models and their textures in any of the Delta Force games can extracted from the *.pff file and then the model itself can be converted to *.obj format for import into UE4. However, the textures themselves are some complete mystery format. That said, I'd wonder if it would be worth the effort (and legal issues) to use them and instead buy similar assets from the Marketplace or Turbo Squid.

I've now personally made a perfect 1:1 copy of DF1 Peru: Insurrection down to the rope bridge, huts, guard towers and exactly placed palm trees with things I exclusively got from the epic marketplace.

The first thing that caught my eye on Tallill once I entered the little towns is how close all the structures resembled some of the Delta Force Blackhawk Down buildings so combining those with the Basrah and Narva high rises would definitely make a nice Mogadishu.

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I've now personally made a perfect 1:1 copy of DF1 Peru: Insurrection down to the rope bridge, huts, guard towers and exactly placed palm trees ...

Noice!

9 hours ago, Zylfrax791 said:

The first thing that caught my eye on Tallill once I entered the little towns is how close all the structures resembled some of the Delta Force Blackhawk Down buildings so combining those with the Basrah and Narva high rises would definitely make a nice Mogadishu.

Edited 9 hours ago by Zylfrax791

ahh, something rang a bell when i was watching a vid of it - now i know why